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| == ZoneMinder Frequently Asked Questions ==
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| This is the new FAQ page. I will be migrating the existing FAQs here as soon as possible. In the meantime the old FAQ page is available [http://www.zoneminder.com/faq.html here].
| | ==User Generated ZoneMinder Frequently Asked Questions == |
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| Feel free to contribute any FAQs that you think are missing.
| | These are user generated FAQs for ZoneMinder. |
| | The official ZoneMinder FAQ can be found at http://zoneminder.readthedocs.org/en/latest/faq.html |
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| ===How can I stop ZoneMinder filling up my disk?===
| | Please treat this page as a supplement to the official FAQ. If you have tips that are not covered in the official FAQ |
| | please add them here. If we find some tips really interesting, we may move them to the official FAQ. |
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| Recent versions of ZoneMinder come with a filter you can use for this purpose already included. However by default it is not enabled for event deletion.
| | You can add your FAQ by following the format below |
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| The filter is called PurgeWhenFull and to find it, choose one of the event counts from the console page, for instance events in the last hour, for one of your monitors. This will bring up an event listing and a filter window. In the filter window there is a dropdown select box labelled 'Use Filter', that lets your select a saved filter. Select 'PurgeWhenFull' and it will load that filter. Make any modifications you might want, such as the percentage full you want it to kick in, or how many events to delete at a time (it will repeat the filter as many times as needed to clear the space, but will only delete this many events each time to get there). Then click on 'Save' which will bring up a new window. Make sure the 'Automatically delete' box is checked and press save to save your filter. This will then run in the background to keep your disk within those limits.
| | === Sample FAQ Heading === |
| | Sample FAQ answer. |
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| After you've done that, you changes will automatically be loaded into zmfilter within a few minutes. Check the zmfilter.log file to make sure it is running as sometimes missing perl modules mean that it nevers runs but people don't always realise.
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| ===What does a 'Can't shmget: Invalid argument' error in my logs mean?=== | | === Montage Layout Names duplicity === |
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| This error is discussed in the README in the following excerpt:-
| | Problem with Montage Layout naming - using same name <b><i>causes creating new one instead of updating existing one...</i></b><br> |
| ''...this is caused by an attempt to allocate an amount of shared memory greater than your system can handle. The size it requests is based on the following formula, ring buffer size x image width x image height x 3 (for 24 bit images) + a bit of overhead.
| | Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS Focal Fossa - easy setup - thank You ZoneMinder !<br> |
| | - but then You need to access the database "zm" - and I searched and found easy solution and modified a little...<br> |
| | - in this case - I use webui of phpmyadmin to manage the content of database - it is easy for beginners,<br> |
| | and You cannot harm the database so easy like with bad syntax on command line...<br> |
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| So if for instance you were using 24bit 640x480 then this would come to about 92Mb if you are using the default buffer size of 100. If this is too large then you can either reduce the image or buffer sizes or increase the maximum amount of shared memory available. If you are using RedHat then you can get details on how to change these settings at http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/database/RHDB-2.1-Manual/admin_user/kernel-resources.html
| | <b>1./ log-in to terminal as su</b><br> |
| | sudo su |
| | (provide password for Your superuser)<br> |
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| You should be able to use a similar procedure with other distributions to modify the shared memory pool without kernel recompilations though in some cases this may be necessary. Note, this error also sometimes occurs if you have an old shared memory segment lying around from a previous run that is too small. Use the ipcs and ipcrm system commands to check and remove it if necessary.'"
| | <b>2./ install phpmyadmin</b><br> |
| | apt-get install phpmyadmin |
| | - I have used for both apache2 and lighttpd<br> |
| | - I have created custom password (for example: PASSword123)<br> |
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| You can often find out how much shared memory is available by typing the following :-
| | <b>3./ modify access to databases for default user "phpmyadmin"</b><br> |
| | - enter mysql:<br> |
| | mysql -u root -pzm |
| | - pzm is for -p and zm because "-p zm" with space don't work...<br> |
| | - I have used command for all databases for easy use...<br> |
| | GRANT ALL ON *.* TO 'phpmyadmin'@'localhost' |
| | - this causes that user "phpmyadmin" has all databases on host visible and editable<br> |
| | - normaly it would look like this - only for "zm" database<br> |
| | GRANT ALL ON zm.* TO 'phpmyadmin'@'localhost' |
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| <pre>cat /proc/sys/kernel/shmall</pre> | | <b>4./ delete or modify unwanted layouts</b><br> |
| | - connect from browser: |
| | http://localhost/phpmyadmin |
| | - username "phpmyadmin" |
| | - password "PASSword123" |
| | - open database "zm" and look for table "MontageLayouts"<br> |
| | - do what You want (study how layout is defined...) :-)<br> |
| | - or simply delete unwanted or broken layout - after this refresh page with layout and<br> |
| | in the dropdown menu of layouts is the deleted one (or more) not more available...<br> |
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| and the most you can allocate in one go :- | | <b><i>Don't forget - MYSQL and PHPMYADMIN are two DIFFERENT things...<br> |
| | - also take care about usernames and passwords</i></b> |
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| <pre>cat /proc/sys/kernel/shmmax</pre>
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| To change these values type (for example) :-
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| <pre>echo 134217728 >/proc/sys/kernel/shmall && echo 134217728 >/proc/sys/kernel/shmmax</pre>
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| However be aware that sometimes you will only need to change the shmmax value as shmall is often large enough. Also changing these values in this way is only effective until your machine is rebooted. To change them permanently you will need to edit <tt>/etc/sysctl.conf</tt> and add the following lines (for example) :-
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| <pre>kernel.shmall = 134217728
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| kernel.shmmax = 134217728</pre>
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| Which will enforce the changes the next time your machine is restarted.
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| ===Why is ZoneMinder using so much CPU?===
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| The various elements of ZoneMinder can be involved in some pretty intensive activity, especially while analysing images for motion. However generally this should not overwhelm your machine unless it is very old or underpowered.
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| There are a number of specific reasons why processor loads can be high either by design or by accident. To figure out exactly what is causing it in your circumstances requires a bit of expermentation.
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| The main causes are.
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| # Using a video palette other than greyscale or RGB24. This can cause a relatively minor performace hit, though still significant. Although some cameras and cards require using planar palettes ZM currently doesn't support this format internally (yet) and each frame is converted to an RGB representation prior to processing. Unless you have compelling reasons for using YUV or reduced RGB type palettes such as hitting USB transfer limits I would experiment to see if RGB24 or greyscale is quicker. Put your monitors into 'Monitor' mode so that only the capture daemons are running and monitor the process load of these (the 'zmc' processes) using top. Try it with various palettes to see if it makes a difference.
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| # Big image sizes. A image of 640x480 requires at least four times the processing of a 320x240 image. Experiment with different sizes to see what effect it may have. Sometimes a large image is just two interlaced smaller frames so has no real benefit anyway.
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| # Capture frame rates. Unless there's a compelling reason in your case there is often little benefit in running cameras at 25fps when 5-10fps would often get you results just as good. Try changing your monitor settings to limit your cameras to lower frames rates. You can still configure ZM to ignore these limits and capture as fast as possible when an event is detected.
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| # Run function. Obviously running in Record or Mocord modes or in Modect with lots of events generates a lot of DB and file activity and so CPU and load will increase.
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| # Basic default detection zones. By default when a camera is added one detection zone is added which covers the whole image with a default set of parameters. If you camera covers a view in which various regions are unlikely to generate a valid alarm (ie the sky) then I would experiment with reducing the zone sizes or adding inactive zones to blank out areas you don't want to monitor. Additionally the actual settings of the zone themselves may not be optimal. When doing motion detection the number of changed pixels above a threshold is examined, then this is filter, then contiguous regions are calculated to see if an alarm is generated. If any maximum or minimum threshold is exceeded according to your zone settings at any time the calculation stops. If your settings always result in the calculations going through to the last stage before being failed then additional CPU time is used unnecessarily. Make sure your maximum and minimumzone thresholds are set to sensible values and experiment by switching RECORD_EVENT_STATS on and seeing what the actual values of alarmed pixels etc are during sample events.
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| # Optimise your settings. After you've got some settings you're happy with then switching off RECORD_EVENT_STATS will prevent the statistics being written to the database which saves some time. Other settings which might make a difference are ZM_FAST_RGB_DIFFS, ZM_OPT_FRAME_SERVER and the JPEG_xxx_QUALITY ones.
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| I'm sure there are other things which might make a difference such as what else you have running on the box and memory sizes (make sure there's no swapping going on). Also speed of disk etc will make some difference during event capture and also if you are watching the whole time then you may have a bunch of zms processes running also.
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| I think the biggest factors are image size, colour depth and capture rate. Having said that I also don't always know why you get certains results from 'top'. For instance if I have a 'zma' daemon running for a monitor that is capturing an image. I've commented out the actual analysis so all it's doing is blending the image with the previous one. In colour mode this takes ~11 milliseconds per frame on my system and the camera is capturing at ~10fps. Using 'top' this reports the process as using ~5% of CPU and permanently in R(un) state. Changing to greyscale mode the blending takes ~4msec (as you would expect as this is roughly a third of 11) but top reports the process as now with 0% CPU and permanently in S(leep) state. So an actual CPU resource usage change of a factor of 3 causes huge differences in reported CPU usage. I have yet to get to the bottom of this but I suspect it's to do with scheduling somewhere along the line and that maybe the greyscale processing will fit into one scheduling time slice whereas the colour one won't but I have no evidence of this yet!
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| ===Why is the timeline view all messed up?===
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| The timeline view is a new view allowing you to see a graph of alarm activity over time and to quickly scan and home in on events of interest. However this feature is highly complex and still in beta. It is based extensively on HTML div tags, sometimes lots of them. Whilst FireFox is able to render this view successfully other browsers, particular Internet Explorer do not seem able to cope and so present a messed up view, either always or when there are a lot of events.
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| Using the timeline view is only recommended when using FireFox, however even then there may be issues.
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| ===How much Hard Disk Space / Bandwidth do I need for ZM?===
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| Please see [http://www.jpwilson.eu/ZM_Utils/ZM%20storage%20calc%20sheet.xls Storage Calc] in excel format
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| Or go to [http://www.axis.com/techsup/cam_servers/bandwidth/bw_210.htm this link] for the Axis bandwidth calculator. Although this is aimed at Axis cameras it still produces valid results for any kind of IP camera.
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| ===Why don't all my cameras display when I use the Montage view in FireFox?===
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| By default FireFox only supports a small number of simultaneous connections. Using the montage view usually requires one persistent connection for each camera plus intermittant connections for other information such as statuses. You will need to increase the number of allowed connections to use the montage view with more than a small number of cameras. This is a simple process and details of how to do it are available from [http://www.zoneminder.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4484 this forum thread]. Certain FireFox extensions such as FasterFox may also help to acehive the same result.
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| ===When I try and run ZoneMinder I get lots of audit permission errors in the logs and it won't start===
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| Many Linux distributions nowadays are built with security in mind. One of the latest methods of achieving this is via SELinux (Secure Linux) which controls who is able to run what in a more precise way then traditional accounting and file based permissions ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selinux]).
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| If you are seeing entries in your system log like:
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| Jun 11 20:44:02 kernel: audit(1150033442.443:226): avc: denied { read } for pid=5068
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| comm="uptime" name="utmp" dev=dm-0 ino=16908345 scontext=user_u:system_r:httpd_sys_script_t
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| tcontext=user_u:object_r:initrc_var_run_t tclass=file
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| then it is likely that your system has SELinux enabled and it is preventing ZoneMinder from performaing certain activities. You then have two choices. You can either tune SELinux to permit the required operations or you can disable SELinux entirely which will permit ZoneMinder to run unhindered. Disabling SELinux is usually performed by editing it's configuration file (e.g., <tt>/etc/selinux/config</tt>) and then rebooting. However if you run a public server you should read up on the risks associated with disabled Secure Linux before disabling it.
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| Note that SELinux may cause errors other than those listed above. If you are in any doubt then it can be worth disabling SELinux experimentally to see if it fixes your problem before trying other solutions.
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| === How do I enable ZoneMinder's security? ===
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| In the console, click on Options. Check the box next to "ZM_OPT_USE_AUTH". You will immediately be asked to login. The username is 'admin' and the password is 'admin'.
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| '''To Manage Users:'''<br>
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| In main console, go to '''Options->Users'''.
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| === Why does ZM stop recording once I have 32000 events for my monitor? ===
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| This is a limitation of the ext3 filesystem that most Linux distributions use.
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| One directory cannot hold more than 32k approx files. Future versions of ZM will have a deeper filesystem but for now you have to reduce the number of events or use a different filesystems such as reiserfs.
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| If you search for ext3 or reiserfs on the forums you will find various threads on this issue.
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| === How can I get ZM to do different things at different times of day or week? ===
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| If you want to configure ZoneMinder to do motion detection during the day and just record at night, for example, you will need to use ZoneMinder 'run states'. A run state is a particular configuration of monitor functions that you want to use at any time.
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| To save a run state you should first configure your monitors for Modect, Record, Monitor etc as you would want them during one of the times of day. Then click on the running state link at the top of the Console view. This will usually say 'Running' or 'Stopped'. You will then be able to save the current state and give it a name, 'Daytime' for example. Now configure your monitors how you would want them during other times of day and save that, for instance as 'Nighttime'.
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| Now you can switch between these two states by selecting them from the same dialog you saved them, or from the command line from issue the command ''zmpkg.pl <run state>'', for example ''zmpkg.pl Daytime''.
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| The final step you need to take, is scheduling the time the changes take effect. For this you can use [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron cron]. A simple entry to change to the Daylight state at at 8am and to the nighttime state at 8pm would be as follows,
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| <blockquote><tt>0 8 * * * /usr/local/bin/zmpkg.pl Daytime<br>
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| 0 20 * * * /usr/local/bin/zmpkg.pl Nighttime</tt></blockquote>
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| Although the example above describes changing states at different times of day, the same principle can equally be applied to days of the week or other more arbitrary periods.
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| For an alternative method of time controlling ZoneMinder, forum user 'voronwe' has created a more interactive calendar style integration. Details of this can be found in this [http://www.zoneminder.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6519 forum thread]. If you would like to find out more about this contribution please post on this thread.
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| ==Trouble Shooting==
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| Here are some things that will help you track down whats wrong.
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| This is also how to obtain the info that we need to help you on the forums.
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| ===What logs should I check for errors?===
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| ZoneMinder creates its own logs and are usually located in the <tt>/tmp</tt> directory.
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| The ZoneMinder logs for the RPM packages are located in <tt>/var/log/zm</tt>.
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| Depending on your problem errors can show up in any of these logs but, usually the logs of interest are <tt>zmdc.log</tt> and <tt>zmpkg.log</tt> if ZM is not able to start.
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| Now since ZM is dependent on other components to work, you might not find errors in ZM but in the other components.
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| Other logs of interest are:<tt>
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| */var/log/messages
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| */var/log/dmesg
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| */var/log/httpd/error_log</tt> (RedHat/Fedora) or <tt>/var/log/apache2/error_log
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| */var/log/mysqld.log</tt> (Errors here don't happen very often but just in case)
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| If ZM is not functioning, you should always be able to find an error in at least one of these logs. Use the [[tail]] command to get info from the logs. This can be done like so:
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| tail -f /var/log/messages /var/log/httpd/error_log /var/log/zm/zm*.log
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| This will append any data entered to any of these logs to your console screen (<tt>-f</tt>). To exit, hit [ctrl -c].
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| ===How can I trouble shoot the hardware?===
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| Here are some commands to get information about your hardware. Some commands are distribution dependent.
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| * <tt>[[lspci]] -vv</tt> -- Returns lots of detailed info. Check for conflicting interrupts or port assignments. You can sometimes alter interrupts/ ports in bios. Try a different pci slot to get a clue if it is HW conflict (comand provided by the pciutils package).
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| * <tt>[[scanpci]] -v</tt> -- Gives you information from your hardware EPROM
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| * <tt>[[lsusb]] -vv</tt> -- Returns lots of detail about USB devices (camand provided by usbutils package).
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| * <tt>dmesg</tt> -- Shows you how your hardware initialized (or didn't) on boot-up. You will get the most use of this.
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| * <tt>v4l-info</tt> -- to see how driver is talking to card. look for unusual values.
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| * <tt>[[modinfo bttv]]</tt> -- some bttv driver stats.
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| * <tt>[[zmu]] -m 0 -q -v</tt> -- Returns various information regarding a monitor configuration.
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| ===I upgraded by distribution and ZM stopped working===
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| Some possibilties (Incomplete list and subject to correction)
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| #[[/usr/local/bin/zmfix: /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.so.15: version `MYSQL_5.0' not found (required by /usr/local/bin/zmfix)]] :: Solution: Recompile and reinstall Zoneminder.
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User Generated ZoneMinder Frequently Asked Questions
These are user generated FAQs for ZoneMinder.
The official ZoneMinder FAQ can be found at http://zoneminder.readthedocs.org/en/latest/faq.html
Please treat this page as a supplement to the official FAQ. If you have tips that are not covered in the official FAQ
please add them here. If we find some tips really interesting, we may move them to the official FAQ.
You can add your FAQ by following the format below
Sample FAQ Heading
Sample FAQ answer.
Montage Layout Names duplicity
Problem with Montage Layout naming - using same name causes creating new one instead of updating existing one...
Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS Focal Fossa - easy setup - thank You ZoneMinder !
- but then You need to access the database "zm" - and I searched and found easy solution and modified a little...
- in this case - I use webui of phpmyadmin to manage the content of database - it is easy for beginners,
and You cannot harm the database so easy like with bad syntax on command line...
1./ log-in to terminal as su
sudo su
(provide password for Your superuser)
2./ install phpmyadmin
apt-get install phpmyadmin
- I have used for both apache2 and lighttpd
- I have created custom password (for example: PASSword123)
3./ modify access to databases for default user "phpmyadmin"
- enter mysql:
mysql -u root -pzm
- pzm is for -p and zm because "-p zm" with space don't work...
- I have used command for all databases for easy use...
GRANT ALL ON *.* TO 'phpmyadmin'@'localhost'
- this causes that user "phpmyadmin" has all databases on host visible and editable
- normaly it would look like this - only for "zm" database
GRANT ALL ON zm.* TO 'phpmyadmin'@'localhost'
4./ delete or modify unwanted layouts
- connect from browser:
http://localhost/phpmyadmin
- username "phpmyadmin"
- password "PASSword123"
- open database "zm" and look for table "MontageLayouts"
- do what You want (study how layout is defined...) :-)
- or simply delete unwanted or broken layout - after this refresh page with layout and
in the dropdown menu of layouts is the deleted one (or more) not more available...
Don't forget - MYSQL and PHPMYADMIN are two DIFFERENT things...
- also take care about usernames and passwords
